Something
by Light Saber Muffins
Summary: Previously Find Me and Follow Me. Redone, we changed our penname. Youi is eccentric and scary, Ume is level headed, jealousy and bouts of amusement ensue. Slight AU, read AN at the end.


**Chapter One: **

"H-hey, um… where are we supposed to go for the Chuunin exams, Ume-chan?" asks a short girl with short auburn hair and dark brown eyes, looking around wildly.

"Youi-chan," replies the other, slightly taller, girl with long brown hair and crystal blue eyes, deadpan. She points directly in front of her. "It's right there."

"Oops?" Youi smiles sheepishly, pushing the doors open. "Kyaa, Ume-chan, Kiyoshi-kun… well, Mistsumi-sensei didn't tell us and—"

"Youi! There's a sign above the door!" Kiyoshi, the tall boy with dark brown hair stopping just below his chin, yells spastically, following after Youi and Ume. "… idiot."

Youi ignores him and springs around the room, glancing about excitedly. Kiyoshi rants on and on about "Viva la Kitty Revolution" while Ume pretends to listen.

Ume spots a familiar face and runs off in the direction of a group consisting of a very shy, cute girl with short blue hair, a loud, obnoxious boy with red marks on his face and an annoying barking dog on top of his head, and a tall, quiet, mysterious boy with sunglasses and a large jacket buttoned up past his mouth. She reaches them and stands in front of the quiet boy, smiling widely and blushing.

"Hi, Shino-sama… I haven't seen you in a while. I've missed you!" And with that, she glomps him. The girl and the boy who were left un-glomped stare on in shock with Shino merely standing there, being physically assaulted.

Ume then proceeds to let go, turning to the other two sheepishly. "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. I'm Aburame Ume. Who might you two be?"

The loud boy immediately bursts out "Inuzuka Kiba! This is my best friend and canine companion, Akamaru! I'm the leader of this team and—"

"...I thought Shino-sama was the leader," Ume says, ignoring him and turning to the girl. "You're so cute! What's your name?"

"…I-I'm Hyuuga H-Hinata," the girl stutters, looking down shyly. Ignoring the girl's apparent shyness, Ume glomps poor Hinata and proceeds to yell about how adorable she is.

Meanwhile, Kiyoshi has found some other poor souls to rant to about kitties: a girl with two buns on top of her head, a boy with white eyes and long hair, and a boy with extremely large eyebrows (and eyes) with a weird looking green jumpsuit. The cute girl seems interested and amused and the boy with the jumpsuit occasionally adds in facts about other cute animals, but the long haired boy seems supremely annoyed.

Youi, glad to be rid of Kiyoshi, scampers off. She stops in front of some fellow sand nins, all of whom turn their attention to her immediately. The tall blonde girl smiles, the short red-haired boy stiffens, and the tall boy with face paint smirks, blushes, and hugs her.

Youi smiles cutely and hugs him back. "Kankuro-sempai, you're so tall!" She pulls back and says "I missed you guys! Why'd you leave so early? Kyaa, Kankuro-sempai?"

"Baki made us leave, Youi-chan," interrupts the girl, casting a side-glance at the red head. "We didn't want to, but we had to."

"Oh, well, that's okay, Temari-chan!" Youi squeals, hugging Temari as well. "You're so pretty, Temari-chan! I wish I were pretty like you."

Temari blushes, saying, "Thanks, Youi-chan, but you are pret—"

She is cut off by the sharp sound of a flute playing through the air as Youi hugs the red head, as best she can while playing a flute. Youi stops hugging him, and playing the flute, as well, and merely stands there.

He glares at her and threatens to kill her, but Youi ignores him and pulls out a small doll resembling the intimidating red haired boy from behind her back. "Isn't it cute, Gaara-sama? It's a Gaara-sama plushie!"

Kankuro glares in jealousy at Gaara. Temari smiles and wonders in amazement why Gaara hasn't disposed of (killed) Youi yet. And Gaara thinks that Youi gets scarier and scarier everyday.

.:00:.

"Alright, listen up! This is the first part of the Chuunin exams: the written test! You can guess the object of this part of the test…" Ibiki drones on and on about the rules of the test until, finally, the test begins. Several students have no idea what they're doing, others are flying through it quickly, while some are cheating: some obviously, some not.

Ume spots the pretty boy Sasuke and unleashes her bugs to cheat off of him, since she heard someone saying he was smart. 'Alright! A, D, C, A, A, B… yes, this'll be easy!'

'Gah, this test is hard. What kind of a person makes a test no one can pass?' Kiyoshi thinks, tapping his pencil on the desk. '…kitties!'

'Hmm… I know some of these… This one's A, D… C, don't know that one. That's A… what does _that_ mean? Um, maybe that's B…' Youi suddenly becomes distracted by the boy sitting in front of her and reaches out to touch his pony-tailed hair. Upon running her hand through it, her eyes sparkle. 'Kyaa! He has nice hair!'

The boy moves his head slightly and Youi withdraws her hand quickly and pretends to be taking her test, just as the boy turns around. When the boy returns his normal position, Youi puts her hands to her face, blushing furiously, and tries not to squeal. '…he's pretty, too!'

Nothing too eventful ends up happening after that, except for Kankuro getting up to use the bathroom and taking something off of Temari's desk. From this particular seen plus many others, it appears that mostly everyone in the room was, in fact, cheating.

Ibiki questions everyone about giving up and a blonde boy in an orange and blue outfit jumps up, giving a long encouraging speech which convinces most people not to quit. After this outburst, Ibiki informs everyone that the first task was not a written test based on skill but a test to see how well the genin could cheat.

Ibiki was in the middle of another lengthy rant-type speech, when a pretty woman with purple hair busted through the wall yelling about something called "The Forest of Death."

.:00:.

Everyone had been taken outside in front of the Forest as Anko explained the rules, but Youi hadn't been paying attention and was very confused. "Psst, Kankuro-sempai! What did she say? I wasn't paying attention," Youi whispers, smiling sheepishly at Kankuro. "I know I should have been, but you know I get distracted easily and—"

"Uhh, I'm flattered that you asked me, Youi-chan," replies the older boy, "but honestly I wasn't listening either. Although it's safe to assume we have to go into the forest and not die…I think we have to battle each other, but don't quote me on that."

"Thank you, Kanuro-sempai, that sounds pretty accurate to me, but I'll ask someone else to be sure." Youi looks around for someone to ask and realizes that the pretty boy from before is standing next to her. She blushes and turns to look at him, waiting for him to notice her. "Ehm…"

They boy slouches lazily with his hands in his pockets, seemingly paying her no mind. Quite contrary to his outward appearance, he is struggling in his thoughts as to why some girl is staring at him. It was making him incredibly uncomfortable and, even worse, he thinks he might be blushing. After a few more minutes, the boy turns to look at the girl and raises his eyebrow. He drawls idly, "Yeah?"

"Uhm, do you know what Anko-san said? I wasn't paying attention and I don't know what we're supposed to do in the forest…"

"The other guy had it right," he replies. He didn't want her to know he'd been listening in on her previous conversation with the other boy, but he didn't feel like saying too many words.

"Oh," Youi says, disappointed. She tries to think of something to say to keep talking to him, and settles for asking his name. "So, uhm… what's your name? I'm Kimihiro Youi."

"Nara Shikamaru," he states simply, hoping to leave it at that.

"Saa, what village are you from, Shikamaru-kun?" she inquires.

"This one," Shikamaru answers nonchalantly, but is twitching visibly at her rudeness of using his first name. "…Kimihiro-san."

"Silly, Shika-sempai,"—Kankuro turns and stares wide-eyed at this—"you can call me by first name! Uhm…this one is…Konoha, Leaf Village, right, Kankuro-sempai?" Kankuro grunts an indignant "yes" next to her, glaring at the other boy.

Shikamaru looks up, wondering what this "Kankuro" person's problem is, while Kankuro twitches visibly and tries not to attack the smaller boy. Youi is oblivious to any of this happening; she is too busy trying to make small talk with Shikamaru, "the new pretty person."

A few feet behind them, Ume sees this and smirks at Kankuro's jealousy and Youi's usual naivety to other people's emotions. She turns to Shino and her eyes sparkle but she avoids a conversation because she knows he won't respond anyway.

.:00:.

Youi pouts sullenly, arms folded and feet dragging. "When are we gonna do something fun?" she inquires. "We've been in here half an hour. Where are all the people? Where are the traps and the supposed dangers and—" She is cut off by a loud shriek, followed by a thud and rustle of leaves. "Never mind, I found a trap," she sighs. "I need a little help down here if you don't mind!"

"Shut up, Youi!" snaps Kiyoshi. "You're gonna call attention to us and then we'll have to fight!"

"…you shut up, you coward. Isn't that the whole point? Get me out! Don't make me force you to!"

"…can't you just play your damn flute and fly yourself out of there?" Ume asks blankly. "I mean, honestly, Miss 'If it can be manipulated I can control it.' You know as well as I do that you can be manipulated."

Youi squints and shifts her eyes suspiciously, but pulls out her flute and does as Ume suggested. 'I don't see being able to control myself will enable me to fly, but eh…' Youi, frustrated, stops playing and sighs with irritation. She shouts, "Yeah and this was supposed to work then?"

"…it did, Youi-chan," grumbles Ume. "Open your eyes, will you? We've got to be on the look out for—"

"Well, well, well, look what we have here. A pack of unprepared children," a sinister voice snarls from the shadows.

Youi's eyes open immediately, sparkling joyfully. "Finally, some fun!" she squeals.

Out from the trees walks a tall, dark, and extremely ugly man—the owner of the voice, quite obviously—accompanied by two others. One is a short, stout man and the other is a rather sluttish looking woman with long violet hair.

"…you're a little old to be here, aren't you?" Youi asks rudely, eyes glinting mischievously. "That's all right, though you might want to worry yourselves. Just because you're old doesn't mean I'll go easy on you. In fact, older means more experience, which means I'm going to make things a lot more difficult for you."

"…um, that's great Youi-chan, but will you shut up?" Ume says, cautious. She moves closer to Youi, Kiyoshi following, and whispers, "Who's going to fight who?"

"…well, you hate sluts, right? You can have her. I want the tall one. I bet he does combat. It'll be fun. And, eh, Kiyoshi-kun can have the fat one. And if I'm wrong, we'll switch off."

The opposing team had been discussing things as well. Their plan is, apparently, going by height. The tall one lines up to fight Kiyoshi, the girl lines up with Ume, and the fat one lines up to fight Youi.

"…screw that," Youi says, jumping at the tall man, kicking him in the face. He jolts back, stares at her in shock and wipes the blood from his mouth. She flips and goes to jab him in the ribs, but he grabs her wrist and twists it.

The fat man, it appears, is skilled in the art of needles. That is to say, they grow out of him and he throws them. Kiyoshi's strong point is not dodging—he's hoping he'll throw enough fire and the guy will burn up before he himself is seriously injured.

Ume, on the other hand, is doing well with her opponent. The girl also fights in close range, using a large amount of kicking as opposed to weapons, which means that Ume can distract her with fighting to attack her with bugs.

Youi is getting fed up with her opponent and decides to do something she didn't want to do—meaning she kicks him in the balls. Jumping back, she sits in the branch of a tree and plays her flute. The man twists and contorts and screams and, as Youi hits a sudden off-key high note, dissipates in a mass of dust.

"…oops," says Youi carelessly. "Anyone need help?"

Kiyoshi dances around on the ground, crying out "Yes! Me!"

Ume rolls her eyes and jumps over to help Kiyoshi, having already infested her opponent with bugs. Meanwhile, the woman Ume was fighting yells at her that she's not finished with her yet. "Oh, well, that's too bad," Ume says, smirking, "because I'm through with you."

Youi watches as the purple haired woman suddenly falls to ground, smirking when a bug crawls out of her eye. Jumping from the tree, she lands in front of a cowering (and wounded) Kiyoshi.

"Stop being a baby. You'll be fine." She turns to watch Ume dodge the stout man's needles and then kick him in the face. "Looks like Ume can handle that." Turning back to Kiyoshi, she sneers, "I'm not touching you, so you better get up. Can you walk?"

"…no," Kiyoshi whines without bothering to try. Youi rolls her eyes and begins to play her flute. "Hey! Hey! You better not make me explode like you did that one guy!"

"Have you exploded yet? No. Now get up and walk that way." Youi juts her thumb to the left, staring at him expectantly. He shakily starts to get up, but quickly scurries off in that direction once she yells at him to hurry up.

Ume, who has now kicked the guy to the ground, watches as the bugs infest themselves within him as well, before turning to Youi. "I think that was a bit brutal," she says calmly. "That guy shredded him pretty bad."

"Yes, and I had the decency to fix it," Youi says defensively. "He's gone off that way now and he's liable to attract more attention, being vulnerable and all by himself." Youi realizes she sounds semi-concerned, quickly adding, "And I don't want him whining, so we should go."

"You really have a conflicting personality, Youi-chan," Ume laughs lightly, following Youi into the woods. Suddenly, Ume stops. "Shit, what about the scroll?"

Youi stops as well, turning to look at her. "Well, the tall guy was the leader and I sort of…proved the theory of spontaneous combustion with him, so…" Ume glares at her and Youi pipes up, "But I can fix it to see if he had the scroll! But you should probably check the other two, just in case. Hey, don't look at me that way. They _are_ your bugs."

While Ume searches the fat man, Youi plays a very low key tune on her flute and the tall guy's body comes back together, clothes and all. Thankfully, he is still very dead, and Youi quickly searches his clothes for any sign of a scroll. "Nothing," she mutters, stepping back as the body explodes again.

Ume is now searching the woman and she calls out to Youi that she found the scroll but would rather not mention where. "…it's a scroll of heaven, too. Shit." She sighs, walking over toward Youi. "I'll take it anyway. Maybe we can use it to negotiate with someone or something…"

"You never know. Until that happens, we'll just have to keep killing until we get an earth scroll, then, huh? Either that or work some mojo," Youi says, cringing. "Or, thank god there's another option, we can snoop and steal. No sleeping for us, that's too stupid in a place like this. I guarantee you that there are people too dumb to realize that. Now, let's go catch up to Kiyoshi before he gets killed."

.:00:.

"I'm tired and hungry," whines Kiyoshi, dragging his feet. Ume throws a small bag of chips at his face. He grabs them and begins to eat, munching and smacking loudly.

Youi stops mid-step and turns around, glaring ferociously. "We are in the middle of a forest where death lies around every tree, every rock, and you're making your presence known? If you get yourself killed and ruin this for me, I will bring you back and make your life a living hell."

"How can I ruin it for you if you can bring me back?" Kiyoshi asks in a moment of ironic wisdom, without realizing what he said.

Ume rolls her eyes and tells him pointedly to shut up. As soon as Kiyoshi becomes silent, they hear humming coming from behind some trees. They creep closer, peeking through the trees and seeing a place that someone had set up for camp. Ume sends her bugs to investigate and finds out that there are more "old" people there who do, in fact, have an earth scroll.

"Alright," Youi whispers lowly, "I have a plan. We'll sneak closer and I'll lull them to sleep by playing my flute and you guys can steal their scroll—or scrolls if they have more than one. We'll keep whatever we find that's useful and the keep the two scrolls we already have, just in case someone catches us off guard and we can toss them one of our extras. I'll keep the heaven scrolls, Ume can keep the earth, that way it'll be safer. I don't trust you with any of them, Kiyoshi."

They move in toward the camp, jumping through the trees until they're positioned directly above it. Youi plays her flute again, a lullaby streaming over the camp, focusing her attention on anyone below her. Ume soon informs her that everyone in sight is asleep and that she is going below to check it out.

Youi is about to stop playing and yell after her, when she hears Ume telling Kiyoshi to stuff his ears and does so herself. Youi was going to inform them that that might not work, but decides to just try focusing on allowing them to stay awake but no one else.

Meanwhile, Ume sneaks around the campsite, searching for scrolls while Kiyoshi grabs up every food product he can find. Ume finds a scroll, but it is not a scroll given to them by Anko, so she is left searching again until she hears a muffled exclaim from Kiyoshi. "Why are there a bunch of scrolls in this bag of chips?"

Ume hurriedly snatches it away from him and jumps back into the trees. Kiyoshi then grabs as much food as he can, stuffing it in his rucksack and carrying even more in his hands, and follows after Ume into the trees. Youi, who is still playing the flute, jumps onto another tree, farther from the camp site. Ume yells at Kiyoshi to follow and does so herself, understanding that Youi wants to be far away before they wake up.

They stop exceedingly far away from the campsite, meaning that everyone they passed by was now asleep. Youi stops playing and, as you may have guessed, said people that were asleep awoke either confused or angry, depending on if they were the ones robbed or not.

Kiyoshi drops like dead weight back on the tree and begins going through all the food. Ume and Youi also sit down, but go through the scrolls instead. Youi remarks, smiling, "So, we have an exceedingly large amount of scrolls, it's been two or three hours, let's get the hell out of here!"

"…except we don't need all these scrolls and if we take them that means less opponents in the next round," Ume remarks. "Unless we're just gonna throw random scrolls we don't need at random people we see."

"Wonderful idea, Ume-chan," Youi says cheerfully. "We'll toss scrolls we don't need to people as we go along. That'll keep them at bay and also give us and opportunity to have much more fun in the next round!"

Ume wasn't sure how Youi could have a lot of fun fighting people if all she really had to do was play her flute, but she kept quiet about it as she suspected that Youi only used that as a last resort when she was getting tired or bored. Thusly, she went along with her accidental plan and followed Youi through the trees, throwing random scrolls—as they had already carefully placed the two they were going to keep in Youi's rucksack, away from Kiyoshi—at people she saw below her.

.:00:.

Several minutes later, they appeared at the tower outside of the forest. After reading the wall scroll, Youi removes the Scroll of Heaven and the Scroll of Earth from her knapsack and hands one to Ume. They open them simultaneously and a tall woman with green eyes and black hair appears, informing them that they have passed.

Youi's eyes sparkle instantly as she glomps the woman, squealing, "Mitsumi-sensei, can we go find Kankuro-sempai now? I'm sure that they all made it through exceedingly fast, mostly because of Gaara-sama…" Trailing off, she slowly lets go of Mitsumi and walks toward the tower.

Ume and Mitsumi stare after Youi as she walks in the direction of the tower; Kiyoshi lies asleep on the ground. Mitsumi and Youi then turn to look at one another, nodding and smiling in greeting.

Mitsumi looks back just in time to see Youi disappear into the tower, before once again looking at Ume. Quirking an eyebrow and smirking mischievously, Mitsumi says "Kankuro, huh? I thought she liked the short scary one?"

"She does," Ume assures her. "She and Kankuro are really good friends, for some reason, and he happens to have the biggest crush on her. Although, of course, she doesn't realize it…"

"And she probably also doesn't realize that she likes Kankuro. Is she even aware of the way she says his name?" Mitsumi bats her eyelashes, making sure her eyes sparkle, puts her hands on her cheeks, squealing "Kankuro-sempai!" like a fan girl, and then proceeds to laugh out loud.

"…that actually wasn't that bad," Ume admits, chuckling slightly. Kiyoshi rolls over on the ground, mumbling something about getting Youi to shut up. Mitsumi and Ume laugh even more, before Ume remarks that they should go inside and find Youi. Mitsumi stares at Kiyoshi, who is still lying on the ground, deciding that she should pick him up.

"Don't want anyone stealing an extra team member or something bizarre like that," she remarks before lugging him toward the tower, Ume in tow.

**A/N: **Alright, so, this is obviously a bit of an AU. Not really, but sort of. Ages are upped by, like, three years, which makes Naruto and co. 15, along with Ume and Youi. It makes Rocku Lee and co., along with Kiyoshi, 16. It makes Kankuro roughly…well, that makes him 17, doesn't it? O.o And Temari just busted up to 18… Hmm. That's semi-awful, but also semi-appropriate, and I'm stickin' to it. Unless noted otherwise. Kakashi and all the adults can stay the same age…just in case I get any perverted ideas.


End file.
